Talk:Wartime collaboration in the Baltic states

The spinoff I mentioned

@Cukrakalnis: Elinruby (talk) 00:33, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for pinging me, but am I allowed to respond to you, considering your topic ban? Cukrakalnis (talk) 14:13, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby, unfortunately, I am locked out of the Gmail that I had attached to my Wiki account. Hopefully, I will regain access to it, but that's uncertain. Basically, I can't read the email you sent me (except for the first sentence that I can see via the notification on Wikipedia). Thanks for your support and Best Wishes! --Cukrakalnis (talk) 17:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't have a topic ban. I am blocked for three months from improving the particular page that Grabowski makes fun of, go figure. Apparently I don't let other people work on it. Yes, I know. Enough said.

I was telling you a couple of things in the email I sent you. First, about the block, which I see you have noticed, if misunderstood. Its main effect is that while I can see you work on that page, I cannot cannot comment on your changes on that talk page or even thank you there for your contributions to that page. (I tried.)

We had previously been discussing the disparity in coverage between countries. Consider France for example versus Romania or Czechoslovakia. The idea has been to move the article to summary style and spinoff the longer sections.

The discussion of how to organize the topic tree moved to Wartime collaboration, of which Collaboration with Imperial Japan and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are examples, right? We do still need someone who has prior knowledge as to the Soviet Union in WW2, so if I haven't already invited you there, consider this that invitation.

Notably, this has already happened for the Baltics (Wartime collaboration in the Baltic states) and for Business collaboration with Nazi Germany). I myself am working on some of the subsidiary articles, at the moment the French Gestapo and their seizure of goods for the Nazis.

(Interestingly, sources say one of the figures involved in this used the money he made collaborating to finance weapons for the Liberation of Paris.) I am also working on the Business collaboration spinoff, which at the moment deals solely with American corporations. That also needs help if you are interested.

TL;DR yes you are allowed to talk to me. Please feel free to double-check that if you are still concerned. Elinruby (talk) 21:08, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Collaboration with the Red Army & USSR

When I was copying this article from the Baltic sections of the more-specific Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, I deliberately left open the question of "Collaboration with whom?", because scanning the material and related discussions at articles such as List of World War II puppet states (as well as the underlying history, as reflected in books such as Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands [2010]), it seems clear to me that one can't intelligently and honestly understand or discuss one occupation/collaboration without the other (local populace much the losers in both cases).

If you were an official or mayor or merchant or policeman or schoolteacher or writer under the first SSR, then (unless you could be useful to the Nazis, Wehrmacht or SS) it wouldn't be unlikely that Reichskommissariat Ostland might very well call you a Judeo-Bolshevik collaborator and treat you as such, but vice-versa after the Red Army had taken over again.

But @AlexandraAVX: is probably right to keep discussions of Baltic-Soviet collaboration (except for context) out of the lead section until it's more fully treated in the individual country sections. @Elinruby: @Marcelus: @Cukrakalnis: —— Shakescene (talk) 14:58, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

As you say, the collaboration during the Nazi occupation cannot be understood without the collaboration in 1940-1941 during the Soviet occupation. It seems clear to me that the title of this article (i.e. Wartime collaboration in the Baltic states) is kind of a placeholder, meaning that we will refine it as time goes by.

We should remember that Klaipėda was occupied by Germany in March 1939 (1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania happened even before World War II began in Europe). After all, Germany occupied countries before the war even began - e.g. Austria and Czechoslovakia. Also, collaboration by Volksdeutsche is included in the collaboration sections about the countries they were inhabiting.

Also, war in the Baltics did not end on Victory in Europe Day in 1945, because there was the Guerilla war in the Baltic states that lasted into the late 1950s. So, paradoxically, Wartime collaboration in the Baltic states starts before World War II in Europe and lasts after it ends.

Considering all of this, we should reconsider some things about this article.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 17:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I would propose a rename (i.e. to 'Collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Baltic states') unless someone is willing and able to widen the scope of the article. AlexandraAVX (talk) 17:38, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, "wartime" does beg the question of which war. Although in the Baltics we don't have Italy as a confounding factor, I am a little concerned about "Nazi" however. As discussed above, this history does not correspond exactly to World War II and there may be people (mayors and police for example) who were called collaborators with both the Soviets and the Nazis. My mind is open or the proposed rename but at the moment I lean oppose. I am also however persuadable, since some of the other people in the conversation likely know more about World War II in this area than I . Elinruby (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Harv errors

Hi @Shakescene: How goes it? I had to revert. You removed two bib entries that had references but no citations attached. I think you need that script by Trappist the Monk that shows up Harv errors. These are errors associated with references. Once the script is installed, these errors in the references can be seen very easily. scope_creep^Talk 14:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Scope creep I certainly didn't intend to change anything; just to adjust the alphabetization in the Bibliography, where every other item is in alphabetical order (unlike in the References, ordered by the footnotes' appearance in the text). General readers (unversed in Harvard citation scripts) might look in the Biblo for one Birn article or the Breitman one and miss it because it is out of order (no Birn2 because Breitman immediately succeeds Birn; or no Breitman because there appears to be no gap between Birn and Haberer.

But it would be far better if you yourself could fix this, since you know the systems much better than I. —— Shakescene (talk) —— Shakescene (talk) 15:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)